BJP sharpens confrontation in red bastions

All set to strike when the iron is hot,  BJP is launching a multi-pronged strategy to target  the Left, its ideological foe, as part of its expansion plans in the run-up to 2019.  

The recent case in Left-ruled Kerala of police dragging Mahija, the mother of  Jishnu Pronoy, the student who committed suicide in his college campus in January, has given the BJP fresh ammunition to attack the CPM.  

A day before BJP president Amit Shah’s two-day visit to Left bastion of Tripura, the party demanded dismissal of the Pinarayi government in Kerala alleging “CPM-sponsored terror” in the southern state.  The issue was raised by BJP MP Poonam Mahajan during zero hour in Lok Sabha, leading to a verbal duel between treasury benches and opposition.

Mahajan said it was not Jishnu’s story but also about attacks on RSS and BJP workers besides women and described the government and police as part of a syndicate.

Kerala is one of the seven states besides the northeast which falls in the party’s new “catchment” areas for its mission 2019.

Though Tripura has just two Lok Sabha seats, BJP is aiming at the larger strategy of marginalising the Left.